The solution to free short stay parking

I didn't make the council meeting this week where there was to be a debate about car parks in Ulverston so I'm not clued in to what  was said, however I thought I would throw in my two peneth here.

The above picture was taken in a little village called Hamble, which is very close to Southampton. Right in the centre of the village is a Council car park which had spaces for about 50 cars I would say.

We found the ticket machine and followed the simple instruction that said for a free half hour ticket press the green button. This I did and out popped a ticket with the time I had to return and the date stamped on it. As we were only popping to the shop for provisions this suited us perfectly.

What a brilliant idea. If we wanted to stay longer the charge was, I think £2 for an hour and more as the times increased. At another car park near to the riverside, where there were a few businesses the free time was extended to 3 hours free, 4 hours would cost you £4.

This is exactly what we should urge SLDC to adopt for Ulverston. There has always been a call for this idea but nobody could work out how you police free parking for a short period of time. Well here it is.

I can see there being an argument about not being able to recalibrate the existing machines to give out free tickets but hang on. They don't have to change the machines when they up the charges do they and if we want 3 hours it charges us more than for one hour. So just calibrate to machine to issue the first hour ticket free.

The amazing thing about the little village of Hamble was that this wasn't some struggling backwater, Hamble is awash with thousands of very expensive yachts, and Marinas. It is home to a thriving leisure boat fraternity who could well afford to pay for parking, but the council have chosen to offer free short stay parking.

So the technology exists, and I see no reason not to press for its adoption in Ulverston. It would benefit us locals popping into the centre for our bits and bobs and encourage more trade for our hard pressed high street traders.

I just hope somebody on our council who was at Mondays meeting had also come across this idea and brought it to the debate, if not then I shall make sure that I inform them all next time we meet.

MRI versus Radio 2

You get to do quite exciting things when you've been diagnosed with  signs of prostate cancer. Late August I had an MRI scan of my pelvic region with a friendly chap at furness general hospital. I changed into my Wee Willie Winkie nightshirt, although I was allowed to keep my underpants and my shoes and socks on, which at first seemed curious, although, once I entered the scanner room I had to take off my shoes, but at least letting me keep my undies and socks on maintained a modicum of dignity.

There's this giant polo mint contraption in the room and very little else, which is a nice shade of magnolia as opposed to the bright white of a polo. I lie down on this platform in front of the polo and the nice man explains that because of the noise that the machine makes I will be wearing headphones. Into these cans, as we call them in recording land, they will play me music. I ask what kind of music will they play and he says that I have a choice between radio 2 and the bay. This is not exactly a choice but more of a less of two evils, and so i plump for radio 2. Mr friendly leaves and I am transported forward into the bowls of the giant polo.

Radio 2 is now playing in my ears some insipid soul hit from the early eighties which I vaguely remember not likeing at the time and dont want to hear it now.

The machine suddenley begins to emit the most hidious noise like a very bad loop of an ultravox intro that just loops and at an excruciating volume. Radio 2 disappears beyond this onslaught and I am immersed in a cocophony of bad synth stuff. then after an age it stops and radio 2 once again excerts itself with another bad tune, I wish I had gone for the bay at this point. The timbre of the machine changes again and we're in a dr who/star treck bunch of noise. On and on this goes as I try to enter into some zen kinda state to prevent my body from moving so as not to blur the image. The origonal theme of the machine returns to ulravox on a loop before the vocals kick in. The whole experience is somewhat industrial, a bit like working in the bowels of a submarine on the slipways back in the 60s.

It's very loud but radio two is still getting through and so I push the headsphone back trying to relieve myself of this torture. The scan stuff is fine but the radio is the real torture here.The machine goes through more synth stuff until eventually I hear the friendly man ask me to breath in and hold my breath, which I do and after a few more minutes it's all over. Very enjoyable except for radio 2 I tell the operative, plain ear defenders would have been less painful. I am transported on the flatbed beyond the polo and its all over, not painfull at all and beyond the scope of mr friendly to explain to my satisfaction. Something about huge magnets and radio frequencies, which explained very little except that I felt I had been in an episode of Startrek.

Take back Freedom of the town honour.

In June last year Ulverston town council voted on a motion to bestow Freedom of the town to the Queens Lancashire regiment. That night a  number of members of the public present at that meeting voiced some very strong reasons why we should reject this motion. One of the prime reasons why we should not bestow this honour was the alleged implication of some members of that regiment in the torture and subsequent death of Baha Mousa. As we all know the motion was carried by 14 votes to one against, I was the voice in the wilderness.

Today we have a damming report was delivered after a year long inquiry headed by chairman, Sir William Gage.

 At the heart of this is the death of Baha Mousa. Sir William makes it clear that this cannot be explained away as being simply the act of a few rogue soldiers


Sir William said a "large number" of soldiers assaulted Mr Mousa and the other detainees, and he added that many others - including several officers - must have known what was happening.


Now I don't know how this freedom of the town thing works but to my mind this association taints our town and I think there should be some way that we can rescind this honour. Perhaps we should have waited until the outcome of this inquiry was known. Had we waited I don't think that I would have been the only councillor to have voted against bestowing this honour on this regiment. 

Jim believes,and RN178 bites the dust

Just read the report in the Evening mail about the Ulverston town councils decision on this bit of land that Ford Park wanted included in the local development plan.

They quote Jim Prosser(cons) as saying " I believe that the town would want that maintained as open green space, I believe that would be the towns peoples opinion generally" I believe, I believe, was he in the Batchelors in the 60s maybe!
I had a brief word with him after the meeting and I said that if he was better informed he may have taken a different view. He said that he didn't have the time to know about all the things that go on in Ulverston. But it says in the report, that he knows the opinion of the town, sorry, he believes he knows. Not exactly informed debate here Jim, some people believe in fairies too.

He has never set foot in Ford Park, not in my eight years there anyway, and I doubt he has any idea of how much land Ford Park wanted to allocate for housing. The area in question here is 0.7 acres out of a 9 acre site. I don't suppose he had even looked at the proposed bit of land on the SLDC map, otherwise he would not have made that statement about the town wanting to have Ford Park maintained as green space.

OF COURSE WE DO, that's the whole reason  the community group exists Jim. RN178, as the plot is nattily titled is not a great loss to the park. It's an area seldom used by anybody, except kids wanting a quick exit over the wall into Hart street, or a dogs toilet in the scrub at that corner of the field. Losing this tiny bit of land is no sacrifice at all,  if it means saving the future of the Park, and not, as was written in the Mail securing the groups future.

On the way out I also had a conversation with Cllr Jack Rice,(cons) who wasn't sure if the community group owned the land. I had to tell him that although the trustees own the Park they do so with an outstanding loan of £300,000  to another charity, The Architectural Heritage fund, who have first charge on the land and buildings. "Oh I didn't know that"

I was heartened to see that Jan Hancock (cons) was supportive of the proposal.

I don't know who voted which way in the debate, I wasn't allowed in the room, but I would suppose that the majority who opposed my proposal were conservative councillors.  Why do I say that, because to my mind Ford Park is a political issue.
There are no conservative councillors involved  in the saving Ford Park project. None nada. Not that they haven't been asked to come and join the board of trustees, or become members, they have been invited countless times. Somehow they see it as a Labour party project, but that is not how the group see themselves, as far as I can see we are a none political group with the fate of the Park being our only goal. So whatever we propose will always be viewed with suspicion by a conservative dominated council, hence last Mondays result with the L.D.F. allocations.
Your council needs to wake up, put aside it's party political stances and become a none political body that cares for it's town, not it's petty posturing. If I had my way we would all be independents and no-one would be able to serve for more than two terms, that's eight years, then we might see some vim and vigour brought to bear on running this great little town.

Rant over.